Sugar and Spice
by Mitsuye-san
Summary: ...and everything nice. There's so many ways this could go wrong, but there are also ways it can go right...right? Collection of oneshots/drabbles/unfinished stories/chapters mostly centered around Kai/Shin Shin/Kai friendship/romance, but other characters may show up as well. Ratings generally K-T. Genres vary. Ch 1: Royal Joker
1. Royal Joker

Heels clicked sharply against the tiled floor, murmurs arose and brought the room to life with whispering waves, and he watched from above the bright lights floating smoothly across the expanse of open air at the boy seated on his mother's lap.

The light shone on him and his parents - special people, his father had whispered to him when he tugged the edge of his coat - and he wondered how lonely it must be, being the only ones in the brilliant light while everyone else was shrouded from their view in a dark, soft light. A place where they couldn't reach, couldn't pass into. Instinctively, he wanted to talk, to learn of this special boy and his special family, and - perhaps, maybe - become a special person as well.

His father chuckled when he had told him, patting his head affectionately while he looked at him in the eyes, saying with all the confidence and love and truth in the world.

"You _are_ special."

He didn't understand what his father meant - at least, completely and fully, as his father seemed to when he spoke those words with bright eyes and a proud smile - but he grinned, because he was special, was told so by his father (and his father was a great man, a _special_ man, too).

So, when he turned back to look at the small boy and his family who were shining so radiantly in this place where there was only the dim lights and imperceptible people, he jumped onto the rail, his upper-body hanging precariously over the edge, and shouted (because, his child logic had reasoned, the small boy had small ears, so he'd have to speak up for him to hear) his enthusiastic greeting.

"Hi, Shorty!"

("He was feeling lonely without any other special kids to talk to," Kaito would later explain, quick and indignant, "so of course I had to do something about it!")

It was as though the very forces of the world had stopped in shock. The veiled guests below froze mid-step and stared, unblinking, into their partner's baffled eyes. Kuroba Kaito, son of Kuroba Toichi and his beloved wife Chikage, grinned, sunny and dazzling and oblivious to what he'd just done.

"Kaito," he heard his father call behind him, not at all flustered by his sudden burst of energy; his poker face was the best of the best, after all, "come down from there. You're disturbing the other guests."

He nodded, but hung on the rail for a moment longer, watching as the boy's mother spoke rapidly to him, a playful smile on her lips as she gestured to and fro, giggling behind her slim fingers. The boy's ears had, strangely, turned a strange color - pinkish-red, of all things - and Kaito wondered what kind of magic he had to learn to do _that_ because that would be an amazing prank to play on Aoko when he saw her again.

Shoulders starting to ache, he let his feet return to the platform and stole a glance at the boy before he returned back to his father.

The boy was looking at him (straight at him, Kaito thought, amazed, through the dark blanket covering him and into his eyes) and he said something - mouthed it, but somehow, he still heard it even as the whispering waves rolled below him, as the heels clicked and slid across the tiled floor once more, as the wind resumed whistling its tune.

"_Hello._"


	2. Chapter 2

"Sir, they're the same."

Looking over his shoulder, the king glanced at the last two contestants his advisor was analyzing. Two small children sat next to each other, one bubbling with contained excitement and curiosity while the other coolly observed his aging advisor with a critical, suspicious eye.

Vainly trying to remove himself from the child's gaze, his advisor turned and handed him the evaluation for the two boys, looking helpless. Scanning it briefly, his eyes widened and he asked, "Have these been double-checked?"

His advisor nodded. "Triple-checked, sir."

Searching through the documents once more, he found a discrepancy in the information. "Only one of them is blue-eyed."

With shaky fingers, his advisor pushed up his small round frames, nodding once more. "Yes, sir, I'm aware, but indigo-eyed children also qualify."

"Can we not test them?" he asked, eyebrows pulling together. "If they qualify for the physical examinations, we must make sure they are willing to learn or have a gift of wisdom."

"Tests have been done, sir - multiple. They've both scored within the same range of each other - very, very high, sir, in the prodigal range - and if one does worse than the other in one, the next one will have the other doing worse."

"Quite the dilemma, isn't it?" he sighed, rubbing his forehead tiredly. He was getting old - _already _old, admittedly - and old men needed their rest. "How about this?"

He walked up to boys sitting obediently on the lush couch and crouched down until he was at eye level. Smiling, he asked, with a bright, bearded grin, "How would you two like to rule a kingdom?"

The blue-eyed boy shrugged, "Sur-"

"_Awesome!" _The indigo-eyed child shot up to his feet, his arms shooting towards the sky.

"Great," the king exclaimed, clapping his hands together satisfactorily. He stood, patting them both on the head, and swiveled around to proclaim to his undoubtedly weary advisor. "See? Wasn't that easy? Come on, boys, lets show you two around the castle."

The king chuckled to himself (he was proud that he could relieve some stress off his old companion) and led his heirs to the library after the blue-eyed one asked to see his documents.

The advisor watched as the doors closed, with flourish, behind the king, stunned and shell-shocked and hopelessly devastated.

Why did he sign up for this again?


	3. Sleepwalker

**A/N: **Just a short something I wrote.

**Sleepwalker**

* * *

><p>Kaito sleepwalks.<p>

It's wholly unintentional, of course, but he still does it every night despite all the cures he managed to dig up on the internet. To be frank, it was tiring, and just a smidgen scary because of all the things he could run into.

Think about it: once, during one of his less fortunate escapades, he walked into bright, colorful world filled with the stereotypical unicorns and rainbows and plush dolls and tea-tables, and he was forced - literally forced - to have tea with a little girl by her guard. Said guard was an angry, disagreeable teddy bear twice his height with glowering red eyes and a permanent snarl twisting his stitched lips.

How could he say no?

So he spent the rest of his night entertaining the devious child, feeling oddly like a joker before his queen, and couldn't help by sigh with relief when she woke up, taking her dreamworld with her. If there was one thing he learned, it was that children were two-faced devils.

Another time, he ended up in a not-so-pleasant situation with a high-schooler. At least, not for him, but he was pretty sure the blond-haired delinquent didn't appreciate him walking into one of his _very imaginative_ dirty secrets. If the shoes and socks and every other available piece of clothing thrown at him was any indication.  
>Needless to say, he hightailed it out of there, and attempted to burn the memory from his mind. Curse his perfect memory.<p>

He was just glad they didn't go to the same school.

Not all of his nightly travels were unpleasant, though. There were creative ones - the world made entirely of chocolate still tops his list - and calm, peaceful ones, and there were simple times that depicted everyday lives in play. He enjoyed integrating himself into their lives, speaking to them and getting to know people he'd never otherwise meet.

Kaito sleepwalked, but it would be more accurate if he said that he _dreamwalked_. He visited dreams whether he wanted to or not, played a role in them, and was forgotten when they woke up. It quelled his adventurous urges he usually tucked away for heists, widened his horizons and let him experience things he never thought possible.

Yes, Kaito liked dreamwalking, looked forward to it most nights, but right now, with his world bathed in red dripping from the sky and a sea of corpses right under his feet, he wished he didn't have the unnatural ability to visit people's dreams.

Or nightmares.


	4. Last Game

**A/N:** Originally a chapter of a plot bunny gone too far, but it died so I'll post this here.

* * *

><p>A muffled ring and an unpleasant vibration in his pocket woke him from his slumber. It smelled of dampness and rain and the clouded skies muted even the brightest of colors to a dull, cheap copy of the original. He shivered, pulling the blazer tighter around him, and exhaled a short, tired puff of air.<p>

Blinking the bleariness from his eyes, he dug out the device when it refused to quiet it's ringing, nearly dropping it in his carelessness, and stared at the name that was presented to him in bright white letters.

_Yoshida Ayumi._

Unfurling himself from where he sat curled up against the door, he slowly pressed the answer button after a moment's hesitation.

"Hel-"

"_Conan!"_

Wincing, his hand jolted away from his ear, instinctively saving his ears from the shrill, frantic cry that already sent him into a brief shock.

_"Conan, where are you? Why aren't you at your house? Why didn't you go home - do you know how long Ai-chan has been looking for you? - what if something bad happened?"_ The frantic mob of questions was clearly audible even as he held the phone an arm's length away, and he tentatively pressed it against his ear when he could no longer hear her.

As he was about to voice his half-hearted apology, he heard a faint sound on the other end - like a sniffle. His eyebrows rose questioningly, a frown set upon his lips.

Was she crying? Why? - what was there to cry about?

His thoughts were interrupted by an unknown voice on the other end. "_Hello? Edogawa-kun?_"

He had half a mind to tell the girl that she was talking to the wrong person - after all, he wasn't Edogawa, was he? He was -

_Edogawa Conan,_ his mind finished, making him blink in surprise. Feeling perturbed, he scoured his brain in search of an answer - another one, a _different_ one. He came up surprisingly empty, and he felt a mound of frustration build on his tongue; he knew the answer, what was it? It was there, teasing his fingers and taunting his memories...

...but what was there to look for? He was Edogawa Conan.

"_Edogawa-kun?_" The girl's voice spoke again, sharper and clearer and lined with concern. "_Can you hear me?"_

"Yes," he answered monotonously, too caught up with his own befuddled thoughts that he couldn't make sense of. His fingers gripped the phone tightly and he shut his eyes in a vain attempt to concentrate.

"_Edogawa-kun,"_ she repeated slowly, as if knowing he would flee from the conversation if she wasn't careful, "_my name is Haibara Ai._"

He briefly wondered the point of knowing her name - who she was, to him and the rest of the world - and if he knew her, too, in the life before he woke up in the classroom, before his memories slipped from his grasp and left him stranded.

He shifted, stretching his legs and arms in an attempt to restore feeling to the numb limbs, and regretted his decision to rest outside in the early winter weather instead of a warm home. His lack of answer spurred her to continue.

"_Where are you_?"

A simple question, but he found himself tongue-twisted for an answer. Home, he wanted to say, but he knew that this wasn't his home, not now, not to his current mindset, at least. And, no matter how much his lips parted to mouth it in helpless silence, he refused to voice it.

"I...I don't know," he settled for instead.

Silence on the other end. "_Do you want me to come get you?_"

The question made him feel like a child talking to his mother, but his lips parted and he spoke, firm and resolute, "No."

"_Very well,_" she assented easily. He could hear protests on the other side - Ayumi's faint and incredulous "_what? No, he needs to-_" and the Haibara girl's quick interruption "_be alone." -_ but it was concluded within seconds and she was talking to him again. "_When you're finished, call this number and tell me where you are. I'll come and explain what you want to know."_

Then the phone clicked and he was left to himself. In the back of his mind, he briefly wondered if she - Haibara Ai, a girl who sounded only around his age - could answer all the questions that have accumulated and weighed him down with confusion.

Then, he started thinking about his life before being awoken by Ayumi, how he was previously, what he did, who his friends were.

But most of all, he wondered who Edogawa Conan was.

* * *

><p>"Kuroba, I-"<p>

"What was that, Homura-san? Your sister found out that her boyfriend was going around behind her back?" Kaito slung an arm around a hesitant, surprised Homura and whisked him away, chattering amicably while his surprised classmate glanced nervously between Kaito and Hakuba.

"K-Kaito-san!" Homura turned scarlet, embarrassed that his sister's secret was told for the world to hear.

"H-hey! Kuroba, we have to t-" Hakuba paused, catching the dead stare the magician was giving him, but shook off his uncertainty and continued. "We need to talk."

Arm still loosely hanging from Homura's tense shoulders, Kaito turned his head, looking directly at the detective. "What's there to talk about, Hakuba? As far as I'm concerned, you've never wanted to talk before, so why start now?"

Hakuba clicked his teeth together, pushing down the frustration that was commonly associated with the enigmatic teen. He needed this to go smoothly, he couldn't have Kaito slipping in and out of his grasp before he could get answers. Counting quickly to ten - he couldn't afford Kaito to walk out on him again - and pulling in a deep breath, he calmed himself.

"It's because I never wanted to talk that I have to start now." He tried to keep the bite out of it, and successfully kept it to a minimum, but was still unsure of how Kaito would react. "Everyone - everything - has to start from somewhere, Kuroba."

While Kaito was silently regarding him, Homura took the chance to duck under the weight of his arm and scuttle away, looking back over his shoulder every three steps to make sure the magician wasn't following. Hakuba's eyes trailed his classmate as he flew through the door, and when he looked back at Kaito, he found him standing dangerously close.

Within pranking range.

He was only mildly surprised when Kaito pulled out his sleeping gas, colored that ridiculous pink he learned to loathe after his endless trials with Kid, and sprayed it right in his face.

"Kur-" he coughed twice, then shielded his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his jacket "Kuroba!"

"Sorry, Hakuba-chan," Kaito clapped his hands together apologetically, but he could see the smirk peeking out from behind his fingers. He ignored the sugar-sweet honorific added to his name. "I have something to do here and there, so I'll do you a favor and let you rest, okay? It looks like you haven't slept in forever."

His overly concerned tone was revolting to Hakuba's ears. But, after seeing the quick glance Kaito sent his way before he exited the door, he couldn't help but think that he was actually looking out for him in his own twisted way.

But then he heard the door shut and the lock click, and he immediately abandoned the thought in favor of sleeping to the many, many ideas he had for retribution.

A few moments later, the door unlocked and slid open though Hakuba had already drifted off to sleep. Kaito chuckled quietly, uncapping a marker that he always kept handy, and knelt beside the slumbering detective.

He wrote "IDIOT" across his forehead. He colored circles around his eyes, a ridiculous mustache just below his nose. He wrote detective on one cheek, annoying on the next. After drawing a cringe-worthy beard, he mourned the fact that he had no colored markers with him. It would have made it at least a hundred times more fun.

Sighing, he sat down beside Hakuba's sleeping form, crossing his legs and leaning back on his hands. He craned his neck back to stare at the ceiling, watching as the sun slowly colored it orange and gold, and flopped down on the floor when his neck started to ache.

They'd probably need to leave soon, but he had a feeling the teachers wouldn't come and check on them, so he closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift.

There was Aoko and her mountain of sweets, Aoko next to him when they waited at the station, Aoko beside Hakuba when they studied, Aoko holding hands with him, then Hakuba, as she dragged then along to who-knew-where.

And then there was Aoko, cold and lifeless as she went down six feet under, never to be seen again.

There was Hakuba who stood tall, stiff as a board, but tall all the same. He didn't cry - not then, anyways, not when Kaito was in sight - but the magician knew he bawled for three days straight when he didn't show up for class. There was Akako who bit her bottom lip so hard he thought her teeth would tear through the flesh just to keep the tears at bay because it was taboo. There was Keiko, shaking and sobbing and calling out to deaf ears.

Then there was Kaito who couldn't even bring himself to cry.

Curling his fingers inward, he sniffed, threw an arm over his eyes, and whispered so quietly that even he had a hard time hearing it over his pounding pulse.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

><p>He only meant to walk around, to clear his head, before calling the Haibara girl.<p>

"He's dead!" A woman screeched, sobbing into her hands, wiping away at tears and make-up alike. It smeared her cheeks, and she looked more devastated and agonized than he originally thought.

Police sirens whistled over the pitter-patter of rain, wailing urgency and purpose to people who were miles away. Conan stood in the cool drizzle, mesmerized by the color scarlet made with the transparency of raindrops. He greeted the death with a strange mix of excitement and cold calculation, and the thrill still thrummed and tingled underneath his skin, shocking his blood into a pleasant buzz.

But he stayed where he stood, not lifting a single finger to help.

The police showed up then, all shouts and quick rundowns; and when one officer came up to him, saying that students shouldn't be at the crime scene, and if he had nothing to say then he should hurry on home, he nodded with silent understanding and walked off.

The professionals arrived, and there was nothing he could do.

And as he left, he ignored the twitching fingers screaming at him to _go back! Search!_, his eyes' urge to glance back every five seconds as he left the crime scene, the beating heart in his chest that was saying _this is what you've been waiting for -_ because what could he do? A high-school student without the faintest idea of who or where he was. What could he possibly do in comparison to professionals who were _trained_ for this? _Lived_ for this?

Feet splashing in the puddles forming on the sidewalk, he dropped his gaze to the ground and clenched his phone in one hand. His mind spoke, quiet and remorseful and tinged with yearning, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out in frustration.

__You lived for it, too__.


End file.
